32 



THE GEOLOGIST. 



jointing is about the most difficult to render a satisfactory account of, 

 or to find a solution for. Pressure and shrinkage are the two causes to 

 which these phenomena have been attributed, and the influence of the 

 former seems to have been that by means of which we can best explain 

 the features manifested by this portion of the physical geology of Hook. 



{To he continued.) 



FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE. 



By Dr. T. L. Phipson of Paris. 



Recent Earthquake at Lisbon — Another Earthquake at Biarritz — 

 M. Lejeunes " Lectures on the Geology of France"" — A generalization 

 hy Alexander Von Humboldt — A word by Georges Guvier — Burning 

 Coal-pits of V Aveyron — Formation of Alum — Salt-basins of VHerault 

 — Waterfall of Gavarnie — A passage from the " Views of Nature'^ 

 — French Kaolin — Death and Writings of Madame Ida Pfeiffer — 

 Submarine Volcano near Leghorn — Supposed vertebrate remains in 

 the Silurian Strata. 



An earthquake took place at a quarter past seven and at nine in the 

 morning of the 11th of November last, in Lisbon and some of the pro- 

 vincial towns of Portugal. The first shock, which some accounts divide 

 into two distinct ones, lasted fully half a minute, and shook every house 

 in Lisbon ; the vibrations of the soil were apparently in a north-south 

 direction. This is said to have been the most violent earthquake ex- 

 perienced in Lisbon since the great one of 1755, and very little more 

 vibration could not have failed to produce the most disastrous conse- 

 quences. Many chimneys fell, and walls were thrown down or cracked ; 

 but it is said that no building was destroyed completely, although one 

 death was caused by the falling of a half-built wall at the Ecole Poly- 

 technique. At Villa Franca another death occurred, and at Cintra and 

 Mafra a good deal of injury was done to the houses. But of all the 

 accounts hitherto received, those from St, Ubes, about eight leagues 

 from Lisbon, on the south side of the mouth of the Tagus, are the most 

 distressing. A great number of houses were thrown down, and some 

 of the inhabitants were buried in the ruins. 



This earthquake was preceded by two days of almost incessant 

 rain. 



M. de Monfort has addressed a letter to the Abbe Moigno, editor 

 of Le Cosmos, describing an earthquake, the first he ever witnessed, 

 felt at Biarritz on the 29th of November last : — At about one o'clock 

 in the afternoon, a dark fog floated heavily in the air, giving to the 

 horizon an unusual tint that made M. de Monfort suppose that some- 

 thing extraordinary was about to happen. Indeed, be was so influ- 



